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Barbara Kingsolver

Biography

Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver was born in 1955, and grew up in rural Kentucky. She earned degrees in biology from DePauw University and the University of Arizona, and has worked as a freelance writer and author since 1985. At various times in her adult life she has lived in England, France, and the Canary Islands, and has worked in Europe, Africa, Asia, Mexico, and South America. She spent two decades in Tucson, Arizona, before moving to southwestern Virginia where she currently resides.

Her books have been translated into more than two dozen languages, and have been adopted into the core literature curriculum in high schools and colleges throughout the nation. She has contributed to more than 50 literary anthologies, and her reviews and articles have appeared in most major U.S. newspapers and magazines.

Kingsolver was named one the most important writers of the 20th Century by Writers Digest. In 2000, she received the National Humanities Medal, our country’s highest honor for service through the arts. Critical acclaim for her books includes multiple awards from the American Booksellers Association and the American Library Association, among many others. THE POISONWOOD BIBLE was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Orange Prize, and won the national book award of South Africa, before being named an Oprah Book Club selection. ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE won numerous prizes, including the James Beard award. THE LACUNA won The Orange Prize for Fiction in 2010.

In 1998, Kingsolver established the Bellwether Prize for fiction.

She has two daughters, Camille (born in 1987) and Lily (1996). Her husband, Steven Hopp, teaches environmental studies. Since June 2004, Barbara and her family have lived on a farm in southern Appalachia. Barbara believes her best work is accomplished through writing, raising her children, and being an active citizen of her own community. She is grateful for the good will and support of her readers.

Barbara Kingsolver

Books by Barbara Kingsolver

When Dellarobia Turnbow climbs a mountain near her farmhouse home, she has a mission: she will take a lover and change her boring life. But what she finds on the mountaintop appears to be not only a glowing apparition, but Mother Nature's tragic error. Her discovery will open her eyes, broadening her world and helping her find her place in it.

Born in the United States, Harrison Shepher is reared in a series of provisional households in Mexico. One fateful day, he finds himself mixing plaster for famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. He discovers a passion for Aztec history and meets the exotic, imperious artist Frida Kahlo. When he goes to work for Lev Trotsky, Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution.

In 1959, Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist, takes his four young daughters, his wife, and his mission to the Belgian Congo --- a place, he is sure, where he can save needy souls. But the seeds they plant bloom in tragic ways within this complex culture.

Alice Greer, her daughter Taylor, and Taylor's informally adopted daughter, Turtle, all seem fated to lives uncomplicated by relationships with men. But simplicity is gone forever when Taylor and Turtle (who is Cherokee) appear on TV by a coincidence of fate, and come to the attention of Annawake Fourkiller, a lawyer for the Cherokee nation.

Looking to escape an oppressive upbringing in rural Kentucky, Marietta Greer heads west in a beat-up Volkswagen. By the time her car breaks down in Tucson, she has with her a stunned, silent three-year-old Cherokee girl who was, literally, dropped into her arms one night and who Marietta names Turtle. Here in Tucson, among a group of fellow travelers, Marietta and Turtle create new lives and redefine the meanings of home and family.